Nature Center

In the backyard of an historical home on Ocean Boulevard in Delray Beach, three nurse sharks share the swimming pool with a stone crab, a leopard puffer fish and several bonefish. The sharks crowd the steps, thrashing to get their portions of slimy red heron heads and squid to the delight of the crowd around the pool. The Sandoway House Nature Center recently kicked off its annual Shark Months. It's a hands-on education and conservation awareness event that piggybacks off its daily shark feedings.

With hundreds of hatchlings squirming in the tanks below, dignitaries from Florida Atlantic University, the city of Boca Raton and the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center celebrated an improvement in their accommodations. Over the past year, FAU's marine science research annex at Gumbo Limbo has gotten new paint, carpeting and toddler-level viewing panes, along with other improvements to support the sea life there. These renovations are aimed at not only improving the inhabitants' health and current research efforts, but also inviting more of the tiny human troops to come take a look at what marine research looks like.

Nature lovers in West Boynton and West Delray were worried that an announced closure of the Green Cay Nature Center and Wetlands was permanent. But local bird watchers and trail walkers can relax. The June 8 and 9 closing is for needed maintenance to the 1-1/2-mile boardwalk that winds around 100 acres of wetlands at the nature center, officials said. "I saw the sign and was worried because last year they almost shut it down for good," said Mila Schwartz, a seasonal resident who visits the center often when in town.

National Moth Week has fluttered in to South Florida! And local moth lovers are determined to prove their favorite insect is not a dull-colored, sweater-eating pest. Long Key Nature Center in Davie has three days of activities featuring all things moth: how to identify them, photograph them, and what attracts them - besides a flame. "Everyone loves butterflies. Moths get a bad rap," said Long Key naturalist Kelli Whitney. "People don't realize we have beautiful moths, some that are hot pink or blue, that are native to Florida.

New tanks full of ocean life and rehabilitating sea turtles are packing in crowds to the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, pushing attendance to a record last month — nearly 20,000 visitors. But it's not coming without some growing pains. Scarce parking is forcing the Greater Raton Beach & Park District, in the short term, to make sure everyone who parks there is actually going to the nature center. And, long-term, the district is looking to increase the number of spots that nature center patrons can get to safely.

BOCA RATON - The first patient showed up with a smashed jaw a month ago - so critically injured it was uncertain she'd make it through that first night. A few days later, Lily came, suffering from a hook that sliced through her intestinal tract. Patient No. 4, found floating near Pompano Beach, lost a limb in a shark attack. It's official: After encounters with fishing line, boat propellers or other maritime hazards, the turtles are arriving at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center. These days, the number of turtles found needing the help - overwhelming the available "beds" around the state - prompted the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission last month to issue a temporary permit.

- Enthusiasm for sea life is drawing crowds to Gumbo Limbo Nature Center which are expected to propel the number of visits well past last year's record of nearly 150,000. You would have no idea 5-year-old Carson Spieker of Lighthouse Point is a regular here the way he runs up and yells to his mother, "Look, I see a turtle!" But, as the population of barracudas, horseshoe crabs and other sea creatures has grown along with the audience attracted here, the city-run nature center's unique life support system drawn directly from the ocean is having difficulty keeping up. The current pipes and pumps draw seawater from the east side of State Road A1A and deposit it into the Intracoastal Waterway to the west after circulating through Gumbo Limbo's watery accommodations.

The bump watch is on at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton . A stingray that arrived in the Mangrove Tank at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center one month ago has begun showing that the arrival of pups is imminent — although it's unclear how soon. Soon after showing up in the area from which Gumbo Limbo's residents are gathered, she started looking a little thicker in the middle, staff reports. Stingrays don't lay eggs like the majority of the swimming things of the ocean that are not mammals.

BOCA RATON The turtle rehabilitation center at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center is powering up to full strength - and the public can now take a peek. The nature center has opened its facilities so visitors can come nose-to-nose with some of the patients, like loggerhead Cindy, whose recovery from last month's shark attack is exceeding all expectations, or Lexi, who swallowed a fish hook and may need surgery. Visitors will see something of the ocean's struggles in the plight of these amphibious reptiles, nature center volunteers and officials hope.

POMPANO BEACH Naturelovers who want to learn how to lead a hike and conduct environmental programs can attend a training class at the Fern Forest Nature Center, 201 Lyons Road South, on Sept. 19 from 9 a.m. to noon. The training, for ages 16 and up, is free and open to the public, but registration is required. For more information, call the nature center at 954-970-0150.

- Enthusiasm for sea life is drawing crowds to Gumbo Limbo Nature Center which are expected to propel the number of visits well past last year's record of nearly 150,000. You would have no idea 5-year-old Carson Spieker of Lighthouse Point is a regular here the way he runs up and yells to his mother, "Look, I see a turtle!" But, as the population of barracudas, horseshoe crabs and other sea creatures has grown along with the audience attracted here, the city-run nature center's unique life support system drawn directly from the ocean is having difficulty keeping up. The current pipes and pumps draw seawater from the east side of State Road A1A and deposit it into the Intracoastal Waterway to the west after circulating through Gumbo Limbo's watery accommodations.

The bump watch is on at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton . A stingray that arrived in the Mangrove Tank at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center one month ago has begun showing that the arrival of pups is imminent — although it's unclear how soon. Soon after showing up in the area from which Gumbo Limbo's residents are gathered, she started looking a little thicker in the middle, staff reports. Stingrays don't lay eggs like the majority of the swimming things of the ocean that are not mammals.

Some of the inhabitants of Gumbo Limbo Nature Center have gotten their accommodations upgraded - and it's giving research efforts to save their natural habitat a higher profile. Money from the Fort Lauderdale-based National Save the Sea Turtle Foundation and the Friends at Gumbo Limbo went to improve a nature center building where five Florida Atlantic University professors work on answering various research questions, including how the ocean's increased acidity is going to affect living creatures.

The Gumbo Limbo Nature Center's ninth annual Sea Turtle Day Festival Saturday is all about saving turtles. More than three dozen endangered and threatened turtles have found a healing harbor — and the gateway to a new future — since the nature center's turtle unit reopened 20 months ago. And Saturday's event is going to offer an up-close view of a dozen more turtle miracles in progress. Turtle Day-goers will be able to meet "Phoenix," a 100-pound loggerhead turtle who came to the rehabilitation center a few weeks ago after losing six inches of her shell in a boat strike.

After more than seven years of depending mainly on grants and the goodwill of the community, the Sawgrass Nature Center & Wildlife Hospital in Coral Springs has introduced an admission fee for adults and children. People have generally been supportive of the decision, said Robin Reccasina, Director of Education at the Center, "Most people are a little confused; they think we are a part of the city, Once we explain that we are a volunteer-driven, charitable, non-profit organization, they understand why we had to introduce the fee. " The fee, introduced in December last year, is $5 for adults and $3 for children ages 5 – 18. Children under the age of 5, Center members and guests on Sunday will be admitted free.

Delray's Sandoway House Nature Center's newest resident, a baby alligator, finally has a name - it's Chompers. The big announcement was made in front of 20 Whispering Pines Elementary School second graders and their families Monday night at the nature center, located inside a converted historic home. Thanks to 103 second graders at the Boca Raton school, a baby naming book was not needed when choosing a name for the 2-year-old gator. Instead, the center hosted a story naming contest for its nameless boarder, who moved in back in August.

BOCA RATON -- The new $1.4 million expansion at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center is so popular, officials of the Greater Boca Raton Beach Tax District are considering adding Sunday hours to accommodate the extra interest. Earlier this year, the Beach Tax District -- working with Florida Atlantic University, the city and the Palm Beach County School Board -- finished an addition that included a new classroom building, labs and salt-water sea life tanks. Joseph Cogley, the city`s parks superintendent, said staffing the new facilities will cost the Beach Tax District an extra $84,900 next year.

More than 200 patrons of the Friends of Gumbo Limbo came together to support the city's nature center, just when it needs help the most in a banner year for attendance. So when Friends' president Michele Kurucz Peel raised a glass to toast "our precious coastal environment," it meant even more than usual at the fifth annual Sea Coast Toast Nov. 8 at the Spanish River Library. "Our attendance is soaring," center manager Stefanie Ouellette said. Peel and Ouellette just presented the center's newly minted strategic plan in meetings.

Along with the melodic and lyrical sounds of the sparrows, egrets and herons, inside the Green Cay Nature Center and Wetlands, a group of poets take refuge and solace in words and create their own call of the wild. Facilitated by poet and psychotherapist Blaise Allen, the community outreach director for the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, the group began in 2008 and now meets quarterly at the Green Cay, in conjunction with the Friends of Green Cay. Allen began her poetry career after an inspiring viewing of the 1994 Italian film, "Il Postino," in which a postman meets Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and learns to love poetry.